Tijuana Hookers Dig In Heels

City Hall's Bid To Clean Up Streets Fizzles

January 13, 2005|By Richard Marosi Los Angeles Times

TIJUANA — Outside El Burro Bar, Monica and Juana saw the seedy landscape of this border city's red-light district gradually take on a new look with swaying palm trees, pastel-painted hotels and fancy lampposts.

Then city inspectors ordered Monica and Juana and all the other prostitutes off the streets and inside the smoky bars and hotels. The new sidewalks, the inspectors said, were for tourists, not the dozens of hookers who crowd the doorways and sidewalks of Callejon Coahuila.

The women -- called "las paraditas," or "the little ones who stand" -- rebelled, triggering a classic only-in-Tijuana civic battle that pitted community leaders against the city's storied and stubborn tradition of vice.

In September, their faces covered with blue handkerchiefs, about 200 prostitutes gathered in La Coahuila, as the red-light district is known, and twice marched across the city in a show of civil disobedience that culminated with a threat to strip on the steps of City Hall. City officials backed down and offered a compromise.

It was a fittingly raucous standoff for a city trying to impose order in the area that helped give birth to its unruly reputation. Try as it might, Tijuana's efforts to create a new image reflecting its transformation into a thriving arts center and Mexico's land of opportunity inevitably collide with its colorful, often seedy past.

Monica, who favors plunging necklines and spaghetti-strap high heels that lace her calves in red, is well aware of her place in society. "Yo soy una mujer pecadora," she said. I am a woman who sins.

Monica's forceful defense of her way of life helped her emerge as one of the uprising's leaders, and she became a familiar voice on local talk radio.

Prostitution is legal in Tijuana, but it is largely confined to the three-block red-light district that locals also call the "zone of tolerance." Prostitution is permitted in most of Mexico, though a few states may have passed legislation against it, according to University of San Diego law professor Jorge Vargas. Tijuana sex workers are required to have monthly medical checkups. If they don't, they can be fined.

About 1,200 prostitutes from all over Mexico work in La Coahuila, making it a sex tourist destination that ranks in popularity with Amsterdam and Bangkok, said Melissa Farley, a researcher with Prostitution Research and Education, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization.

Masseuses, dance girls and high-priced strippers work inside dozens of clubs. Outside, the paraditas lean against the grimy tile walls of bars and restaurants. Callejon Coahuila, or Coahuila Alley, is the pulse of this Mexican sin city.

The 150-yard stretch of strip clubs, taco stands and beauty-supply stores is an outdoor bazaar.

The city redevelopment project was going as planned until city inspectors showed up one day and told the prostitutes that they didn't fit into the streetscape's new image.

The women knew next to nothing about politics. Most have grade-school educations. But Monica and Marta, both grandmothers, said they had a lifetime of experience in negotiating with hard-headed men.